Medical Courses

Medica - Pharmacist: Overview

The majority of hospital pharmacists work for hospitals in The National Health Service (NHS).In times of staff shortage, NHS trusts may employ locum pharmacists to work in their hospital pharmacy departments. Some locum pharmacists work for an agency but others may work for an individual hospital or NHS trust on a casual basis.

Apart from the NHS, some hospital pharmacists work in the private sector. The independent and voluntary healthcare sector has been growing for several years. Three of the largest operators in the UK are BMI Healthcare, BUPA and Nuffield Hospitals. They, and other providers, run care homes for older people, adults and children with mental health, learning, or physical disabilities, as well as around 300 hospitals and clinics.

Expected Salary

• Pre-registration graduates: £19,683
• Qualifie hospital pharmacists £23,458 to £31,779
• Pharmacy consultant or pharmacy team manager: £75,114 (with ten or more years' experience)

Training

After becoming a registered pharmacist with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) and obtaining a job, the majority of hospital pharmacists develop their careers by taking a certificate or diploma in clinical pharmacy, which is often followed by an MSc. In order to progress to more senior grades it is necessary to take training to support in their chosen speciality or career path.

Training opportunities include in-house training provided by the pharmacy department or hospital, regionally or nationally organised study days or courses, initial specialty training and training in management.

Pharmacists need to keep abreast of developments in drug research, including the new drugs that are developed and come on the market; the new methods of treating conditions with drugs; and government and hospital policies for drug treatment.

Further training also forms part of a pharmacist's continuing professional development (CPD). An appraisal of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's whole CPD recording and review process is in progress to help prepare the pharmacy profession for mandatory CPD in autumn 2008.

Underoak lists many short courses to aid you in your career progression. These may be funded individually or through your company. To search these courses, simply type the relevant key words and click on ‘request further information’ to send your enquiry direct to the trainer.

Related Careers

• Community/retail pharmacist
• Medical physicist
• Pharmacologist
• Regulatory affairs officer
• Scientific journalist
• Scientific laboratory technician
• Toxicologist

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Core Skills

A four-year degree in pharmacy (MPharm), followed by one year of pre-registration training (pre-reg), is necessary in order to practise as a hospital pharmacist.

Entry to the profession without a pharmacy degree or with an HND only is not possible. Work as a pharmacy technician (usually trained to NVQ level 3) will give experience of the work environment but will not allow progression to hospital pharmacist.

Hospital pharmacies are heavily computerised for both routine control and for financial management. Computer literacy is essential. It is essential for the potential candidates to demonstrate the following skills:

• The ability to work carefully, methodically and accurately - this is vital as mistakes could prove fatal
• Good interpersonal skills and a caring and sympathetic manner, as the work usually involves contact with patients on the wards and in outpatient departments
• A responsible attitude to work
• General clinical awareness

Pharmacists with supervisory responsibility require:

• Effective management skills
• The ability to delegate tasks and monitor the work of junior staff

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Average working hours per week

Job Spotlight

Pharmacist

The Role

Hospital pharmacists work in a hospital pharmacy service, primarily within the public sector. They are responsible for ensuring the safe, appropriate and cost-effective use of medicines. Hospital pharmacists use their specialist knowledge to dispense drugs and advise patients about the medicines they have been prescribed. They work collaboratively with other health care professionals to devise the most appropriate drug treatment for patients. Some pharmacists are also involved in manufacturing required drug treatments.

The role of the hospital pharmacist sometimes extends outside the hospital, with responsibility for medicines in health centres, nursing homes, hospices and general practitioners' (GP) surgeries.

Tasks may include:

• Participating in ward rounds, taking patient drug histories and contributing to the treatment decision-making process - this includes highlighting a drug's potential side effects, identifying harmful interactions with other drugs and assessing the suitability of treatments for patients with particular health conditions
• Liaising with physicians, nurses and other fellow health care professionals to ensure the delivery of safe, effective and economic drug treatment
• Counselling patients on the effects, dosage and route of administration of their drug treatments, particularly those who require complex drug therapy
• Monitoring every stage of medication therapy to improve all aspects of delivery and reporting patient side effects
• Communicating effectively with patients' relatives, community pharmacists, general practitioners (GPs), etc.
• Preparing and quality-checking sterile medications under special conditions (e.g. intravenous medications for those unable to take food, anti-cancer medications, eye drops, etc.)
• Ensuring medicinal products are stored appropriately and securely to ensure freshness and potency
• Ensuring medication reaches the patient in the correct form and dose - this may include tablets, capsules, ointments, injections, inhalers and creams
• Being responsible for the accurate dispensing and timely distribution of drugs and medicines for inpatients or outpatients
• Supervising and checking the work of less experienced and less qualified staff
• Responding to medication-related queries from within the hospital, other hospitals and the general public
• Keeping up to date with, and contributing to, research and development, often in collaboration with medical staff and colleagues in the pharmaceutical industry
• Writing guidelines for drug use within the hospital, preparing bulletins and implementing hospital regulations
• Providing information to individual wards on budgets and expenditure on drugs
• Setting up clinical trials, evaluating new medications against claims made by pharmaceutical companies and recommending new medicines that are the safest and most effective for individual patient needs.

Salary:

• Pre-registration graduates: £19,683
• Qualified hospital pharmacists £23,458 to £31,779

Career Development

Upon successfully completing the pre-registration (pre-reg) year, pharmacists normally enter the hospital pharmacy service at basic Band 6. At this stage, pharmacists must be registered as members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) (MRPharmS).

Like pre-reg trainees, newly qualified Band 6 pharmacists usually rotate between different pharmacy services offered by their hospital. These may include:

• Clinical pharmacy
• Medicines information
• Medicines management
• Aseptic/technical services
• Dispensary services
• Community pharmacy services
• Primary care
• Clinical trials